Food, Agriculture and Nutrition

Projects have primary focus on food production, agriculture and nutritional aspects. Such as, Suchana project has key focus on nutrition. HFMLIP-LGED focuses on both capture fisheries management and aquaculture while HFMLIP-BWDB focuses on horticulture, rice and wheat under CC & DRR scenarios. Food security and diversity are crosscutting agenda of these projects.

Under the G4CR-II project, local farmers were trained in climate/salinity tolerant crop varieties (rice, vegetables, wheat, and mustard), which was facilitated by field officials of the Department of Agriculture Extension (DAE). Rice, wheat, mustard and vegetable seeds were distributed among the farmers. The project restored one silted up canal to drain excess rainwater and to create a rainwater reserve for farming and fishing. The project also supported farmers (men, women, and youth) for practicing climate smart agriculture using water from restored canals. To promote smart agriculture, a Power Tiller was distrusted to a farmer group of the Munshiganj union in the Shyamnagar upazila of the Satkhira district.

Utilizing the project support, the beneficiaries of the SRCCP project were able to enhance their family’s total protein consumption and income than that of the past. It was measured by the Food Consumption Score (FCS), a tool to scale up the consumed food quality. The average pre-support food consumption score is 29.37 and the average post support food consumption score is 37.54. Thus, the support increased average food consumption score by 8.17.

The Suchana project of CNRS played a significant role in reducing the rate of stunting. The end-line survey conducted by ICDDR’B revealed that the prevalence of stunting (35.5%) has been reduced to a satisfactory level considering the RFLI (46.3%) and baseline (52.6%) targets. According to the end-line survey, among 20 upazilas in the Sylhet and Moulvibazar districts, a reduction of stunting of over 6% was observed in only five upazilas, and among them, the top three are from the Moulvibazar (Barlekha, Moulvibazar Sadar and Sreemongal) district, which is the working area of CNRS. The Suchana project also has been playing a significant role in the nutrition governance issue. To keep promoting the scaling-up of nutrition governance, CNRS supported 37 Unions Parishads and GoB line agencies (like DGHS, DGFP, DAE, DLS, DoF, Women Affairs Department, Youth Department, DPHE, and Education department) at upazila level to prepare their respective Multi-sectorial Nutrition Action Plan.